Inertial Stellar Compass

Inertial Stellar Compass

Function	Advanced spacecraft navigation system for attitude determination and orientation recovery
Properties
Mass	2.5 kg
Power consumption	3.5 W

Inertial Stellar Compass (ISC) was a proposed[1] instrument for an advanced navigation system designed to allow spacecraft to operate more autonomously by enabling precise attitude determination with an accuracy of better than 0.1 degrees across all three axes.[2] It also provides the capability to recover orientation after a power loss.[3]

The ISC is small in size and consumes low power to operate. The ISC was developed by NASA as part of New Millennium program's Space Technology 6 project in collaboration with Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.[4][5]

The instrument functions with a combination of a miniaturized star tracker and gyroscopes. It uses a wide field-of-view active pixel star camera and a micro electromechanical system to determine the real-time stellar attitude (orientation) of the spacecraft. It has a mass of 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) and requires 3.5 W power.[4]

In 2007, it was successfully deployed and fully operational in space aboard the TacSat-2 spacecraft.[6]

As the New Millennium Program had its budget cancelled in 2009,[7] it is unclear whether development of this instrument is ongoing.

References

1. "Inertial Stellar Compass". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 2024-11-25.
2. Brady, T.; Buckley, S.; Tillier, C. (2004). "Ground validation of the inertial stellar compass". 2004 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8720). IEEE. pp. 214–226. doi:10.1109/AERO.2004.1367607. ISBN 978-0-7803-8155-1.
3. "ST6 - NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
4. "The Inertial Stellar Compass: A New Direction in Spacecraft Attitude Determination" (PDF). 16th Annual USU Conference on Small Satellites. 2002. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
5. "Inertial Stellar Compass". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
6. "Draper Lab inertial stellar compass in first space flight". Military Aerospace. 2007-01-06. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
7. Nola Taylor Tillman (2019-02-12). "NASA's New Millennium Program: Taking Risks to Reduce Future Danger". Space.com. Retrieved 2024-11-25.